Cybercarpet – walking in virtual space

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In what looks to be another step towards realising the Star Trek Holodeck, German researchers, at the Max Planck Institute of Biological Cybernetics, have created a new treadmill for use with virtual reality headsets that allows continuous walking without moving.

The treadmill is being called the CyberCarpet and offers users a 4.5m x 4.5m area on which to walk. The moving platform was created by combining 25 standard treadmills and weighs a total of 11 tonnes. The motors it uses can handle weights of up to 7 tonnes moving across its surface.

The CyberCarpet is not a new concept, but the researchers claim it is the first omni-directional platform that moves fast enough to allow natural walking or jogging of speeds up to 2 m/s across it. When the user puts on a 3D virtual reality headset it is meant to give them a sense of freedom of movement within the 3D world they are viewing.

The research into this natural motion is set to continue with the CyberCarpet forming part of a larger project called CyberWalk. Cyberwalk uses a combination of a tracking system with the motion capture cameras around the treadmill that can feedback on where an individual is moving to on the CyberCarpet and adjust the speed it moves accordingly. In a 3D environment this translates to natural movement around the place the user is visiting.

Ultimately the researchers want to do away with the need for special suits to be worn to motion capture movement. They are also working with a package called CityEngine, created by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, that allows the generation of areas in specific cities around the world, which can then be walked around.

The BBC news link also has a video showing off the CyberCarpet in action. It does look very basic, but imagine putting a headset on and being able to walk around an environment like that of World of Warcraft first hand. It would certainly be an experience and I’m sure you’d soon forget you are standing on a giant treadmill.

From what the researchers have said, the size of the CyberCarpet needs to expand to 6m x 6m for the user to experience totally natural walking. Expanding it to a size of 100m x 100m would also get rid of the feeling of being recentered, but that is obviously not going to happen.

With the size and weight of this device it is not something we will be seeing in too many places. Possibly the bigger theme parks may utilise them for a new ride and the potential is there for applications in motion capture studios where space is at a premium.